Agriculture and Environment: Soybeans

Producers have merely made a choice to produce soybeans rather than another crop that had been grown previously.

Extensive natural habitat conversion
This is not the case in many tropical countries, however, where the cultivation of soybeans often is part of the process of converting extensive areas of natural habitat to agriculture for the first time.

This is true of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Cambodia. In these instances, producing soybeans destroys natural habitat and nearly all the flora and fauna found there. In the Latin America soybean cultivation has taken place at the expense of natural savannas and tropical forests.

Impacts of associated development
In addition to direct habitat conversion, soybean production in pristine areas also requires the construction of massive transportation and other infrastructure projects.

The infrastructure developments unleash a number of indirect consequences associated with opening up large, previously isolated environments to population migration and to other land uses. This infrastructure contributes directly and indirectly to habitat conversion.

Damages done in Brazil
In Brazil, for example, plans are underway to build 8 industrial waterways, 3 railways, and an extensive network of highways. Such infrastructure is not used just for soybeans. Estimates suggest that collateral impacts may be as much as 6 times those resulting directly from soybean production, particularly in areas like the Amazon where isolation had previously been the limiting factor for development (Fearnside 2000).

Some soybean producers clear forests themselves. Other buy the land from small producers, often colonists, who have already cleared it. These same small producers then move further into the frontier and clear more land.

Millions displaced
In Brazil, soybean cultivation displaces eleven agricultural workers for every one finding employment in the sector. In the 1970s, 2.5 million people were displaced by soybean production in Parana state and 0.3 million in Rio Grande do Sul. Many of these people moved to the Amazon where they cleared pristine forests (Fearnside 2000). More recently, the expansion in the cerrado involves the displacement of very few people because the area has not been widely inhabited.

At high risk - savannas and cerrados
In Brazil the savannas and cerrados are the most at risk. These areas have biodiversity that rivals equivalent areas of Amazonian forests, but only 1.5% of such lands are in federal reserves. Unfortunately, they can be easily converted into vast expanses of soybean fields.

Even during the first year, however, agrochemicals must be provided for the crop to be financially viable. The soils are often so poor that within two years, virtually all nutrients are provided through applied lime and fertilisers. The soil is stripped of virtually all fertility and only serves to hold up the plants.